Signaling challenges of today's smart phone driven services will persist and evolve as wireless networks transition to LTE. LTE offers some hope of signaling reduction with radio optimization and changes in mobility management that should reduce signaling. For example, LTE has several differences that will drive more signaling potentially at a rapid pace. Key among these includes changes that enable richer services including IP multimedia subsystem support that will drive new types of business apps and services. These new services are only possible on LTE due to the combination of faster network speeds and Smartphone computing power; however, they also will lead to more signaling. LTE networks are not a panacea for signaling issues. Part of that consideration should be traffic optimization, which can ameliorate signaling that comes from applications and from the network and optimizing traffic for resource conservation.
The market growth in smartphones that has brought us the wireless data tsunami is showing no signs of slowing. For example, Android's growing lead in the market, though, has some implications for wireless network capacity, whether it's bandwidth or signaling. In terms of market share growth, Android posted a 106% growth from the prior year—an amazing feat.
The net result for mobile operators and networks are: 1) more phones equal more app usage and an increased risk of congestion; 2) and the new dominance of Android might also impact the network. In terms of signaling and data efficiency BlackBerry and iOS are somewhat better than Android.
Specifically, with Android ascending, there will be more traffic per handset just from the OS. Of course, the bulk of the traffic is from apps and no handset maker yet has standards of efficiency on that front. More traffic management and traffic optimization with a special focus on Android OS and management of traffic optimization policies according to device, platform, and/or user is the way to neutralize the network impact of the growth of these handsets.